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Luiz Toledo

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Recycling cigarette filters

Cigarette filters take a long time to decompose and I would like to understand and learn more about the current strategies that people and companies are developing towards recycling them.

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Topics: Development Green Environmental degradation Recycling cigarettes sustainable development
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  • Phil Webb

    • +1
    Oct 22 2011: What if, what if smokers were required to "turn in butts to be able to buy new cigarettes?"
    I think a pack of cigarettes have quantity of 20 per pack, so you would need to turn in 20 butts to be able to buy a new pack.
    If you want to sell cigarettes then you have to be able to turn in those butts, to be able to get your supplies. This would easily keep the butts off the streets. Similar to a used tire or used battery when buying a new one.
    If you do not turn in the required butts, then you pay a tax that goes toward cleaning up cig butts.
    Side note, I'm a small business owner and one day I was walking to my store and was coming up behind a police car when I saw the officer roll down the window and throw out a cigarette butt. I nicely walked up to the window and told him how we were trying our best to keep the parking lot clean and would he mind getting out and picking up that cigarette butt.
    He did get out and pick it up, to be honest I may have handed it to him thru the window, but either way it was back in his car for him to deal with.
    Can I get some thumbs up for that one?
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    Blake Burich

    • +2
    Oct 13 2011: InnovaGreen Systems already recycles cigarette butt litter and is continuing to grow...spread the word... Incorporated since 2010 check out Innovagreensystems on facebook or www.innovagreensystems.com

    No need to debate...utility patents in place and already being done....be responsible smokers...

  • Justin McDaniel

    • 0
    Oct 11 2011: Cigs are too easy to throw on the ground, I do not see this as a potential successful idea. But don't let that stop you.

  • hüso kalıp

    • 0
    Oct 10 2011: hi

  • Bob Tisdale

    • 0
    Oct 10 2011: Excellent suggestions re burning, insect kiler and training crows, for filter uses . I have been smoking for 60 years starting with rolled paper stuffed with lawn grass. Graduated to roll ur own with tobacco. At the time cigarettes were sold without filters. The solution to the problem would be to ban the manufacture of filters on cigarettes.
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    Martin Pold

    • 0
    Oct 10 2011: Even better if people are not smoking cigarettes at all and would be useful to ban them in all around the world! Save the planet Earth!
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    Benjamin Goldstein 20+

    • 0
    Oct 8 2011: Cigarette filters are made out of plastic which is why they last so long.

  • martin wolf

    • 0
    Oct 8 2011: Well from l"ittle seeds trees do grow"...What are the filters made of that makes them stay around in all types of weather for years apparently...Always thought they ,the filters, were some sort of fancy folded paper...If not what are they made of...??I've been smoking steadily for almost 45 years and this problem of cigarette filters littering the landscape has been creeping into the foreground butt by butt...I remember seeing an anti-cigarette butt campaign at a rest stop on the pennsylvania turnpike about a decade ago and laughing at the claims on the poster presentation that the butt end of a cigarette would not break down for thousand or perhaps it was hundreds of years..Living in the country i gather mine in coffee cans and eventually place them into the fireplace(airtight)to extract some btus(joules)out of them..:)

  • Phil Webb

    • +2
    Oct 7 2011: Luiz,
    It takes a while to get to the part where I thought about your idea.
    In case you have not watched it yet, let me outline the video so you will know if it should be viewed in it's entirety.
    Basically the speaker has trained Crows to find loose coins lost around towns and to bring them back to a self built vending machine that will feed the Crow a peanut ( think it was a peanut) when a coin is dropped into a slot.
    This might not be the most practical method of collecting butts, but thought it was worth a view.
    Phil

    • Luiz Toledo

      • 0
      Oct 7 2011: Liked it, and found it interesting...
      But I was looking for something more industrial, that could work in large scale... However, worth to watch it!

  • James Kindler 20+

    • +2
    Oct 7 2011: It's not recycling but if you put the butts in a coffee can and let them sit for a couple of days it makes a great insect killer that doesn't harm plants. Just pour it into a spray bottle.

  • Phil Webb

    • 0
    Oct 6 2011: Luiz,
    Funny you mention this, I think that I viewed the perfect talk the other day here on TED that would help round them up.
    Check it out.....
    http://blog.ted.com/2008/05/13/joshua_klein/
    Phil

    • Luiz Toledo

      • 0
      Oct 7 2011: Thanks Phil,
      I will have a look at it! :)
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